Melting a Heart
by Child of the Ocean
Summary: Leo Valdez planned for little things, like getting poisoned or the camp burning down. He didn't plan to fall in love. Leo/Nico.
1. Initium

**This fic is a reboot of Fire & Ice. As I started the original when I was about 11 and I am now about 13, I can see a number of problems with the original that I want to fix now.**

**For those of you who haven't read the original or the fic summary: warning, this story contains slash. Also, swearing, of the uncensored variety. Don't like, don't read.**

**Disclaimer: Me not be Rick Riordian, me not own PJO or HoO.**

**Note: I'm going to alternate between first person narration from various people to third person, every now and then. Just so you know.**

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_Leo_

Um.

Oh, gods.

Where to begin.

I had everything plotted out in my head, you know. I was gonna build the Argo II, gonna pilot it to the Roman camp, gonna get everyone together and set off with the others to help save the world.

Honest. I had planned ahead. I'm not an idiot.

The thing is, when in this sort of situation you plan for things like being incapacitated by getting gored on a spear, or maybe poisoned, or even the camp getting destroyed. You know. Little things like that.

But, unless you're Annabeth Chase or Athena or - well, you get my point - you _don't_ plan to fall in love.

The first time I met Nico di Angelo, it wasn't love at first sight. Sure, he was cute. Seriously. Little shiny eyes, black hair that stuck up at the back, olive skin, and all of this topped off with an oversized jacket and an _adorable_ scowl. But there was no magic sparks or anything like that. The fact he was cute was just something I noticed, like the way you notice Piper's pretty or Jason has blond hair.

I asked around and most of the campers think Nico's grown a lot. Really? I think he just looks like he's grown to _them_. To me, a newcomer, he looks like a kid. And apparently he used to look even _cuter_. What a shame I wasn't there to see him.

Anyway. Back on track. Me and Nico, we meshed like _shoomph_. Seriously. I first saw him when he was doing his whole emo-in-the-shadows thing, and Annabeth squealed and hugged him. They chatted about whether he'd found Percy yet – the answer was no – and then she thought I might want to know who this strange boy in my _bunker_ was. So she introduced me to Nico di Angelo, son of Hades.

We shook hands, and then as I got back to work we started to talk. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster. We liked the same songs, same films. He saw I fidgeted, and told me he fidgeted a lot too. We talked about how we first found out we were half-bloods. What quests we'd been on. What monsters we'd slayed.

And in the end we just talked.

That night I thanked him for the company, sent him away, spent another half-hour tinkering with the Argo II, then called it a day and went to pass out on my bunk. The next day, I saw Nico at breakfast – he didn't eat much. After I finished my waffles (courtesy of the Demeter children), I retreated into Bunker 9 and got back to work, and a few minutes later he came in. This time, he wanted to help.

I got him to sort components out of the big boxes. He seemed pretty good at that. We chatted a little – turns out he used to collect Mythomagic toys. No idea what they are, but they sound cool. As we talked, other Hephaestus kids filed in, and Nico hushed up. They gave him some strange looks, and when he tried to talk everybody stopped to look at him, and he just looked down and carried on working.

Minus the breaks for lunch and dinner, we spent the whole day like that. At nine o'clock, the rest of the Hephaestus kids left – and then _wow_, did we talk. All the things he'd wanted to say had been bottled up, and now he had taken off the lid.

He wanted to learn more about mechanics, wanted to actually help. He asked to do something useful, but not too hard. After a few moments, I decided to let him help program the computer system – and then he blushed, and told me about his past.

It turns out Nico was born ages ago – more than seventy years – and when his mom was killed by Zeus, Hades put him into a place called the Lotus Hotel. Time slows down there, and your memories get destroyed.

So, basically, he didn't think he'd be that good with computers.

But I showed him the basics, and he enjoyed it. His mom had had a typewriter, and he and his sister (he told me she was dead, and from the look on his face I decided not to ask more) used to see who could type the fastest. I outlined the basics of the programming language we were using, and then he started making some basic programs. We carried on chatting, me working, him programming, and before we knew it two hours had passed and we had to go.

Days passed. Nico got better and better with the computer, and before long he was writing parts of the program to run the Argo II. He stopped sorting the components during the day. The other Hephaestus kids stopped staring at him when he tried to speak. And we started talking about our secrets, telling each other things we normally didn't mention.

And then, two weeks after we first met, it happened.

We were chatting as usual. I made a joke – a dirty one. I didn't expect Nico to laugh so hard, but he did. I'd only ever heard him chuckle, but this was a full-out laugh – loud, bright, infectious.

And then, as I was watching him and trying not to laugh as well, it hit me.

He wasn't just cute. He was _beautiful._

I stopped smiling, shocked at the thought. But it was true. In the middle of his teens, when every one else at camp (apart from Piper) had at least _one_ spot, he had none. His voice was sweet, his hair soft.

But he wasn't just beautiful in looks. He had good manners. He was kind. He was the best friend I'd ever had – an even better friend than Jason.

_How doesn't he attract anyone?_ I thought to myself, as Nico finally stopped laughing and wiped the tears from his eyes. But the answer was obvious – you just had to look at how the campers looked at him, how different he was when it wasn't just us two.

To everyone except me, Nico di Angelo was as cold as ice.

I lay in bed that night, unable to sleep. Thoughts flashed through my head – Nico laughing, Nico blushing, Nico somberly telling me about his sister. I thought about these thoughts, and then I thought about the thoughts about the thoughts, and then I looked through all the thoughts and saw the answer.

My first thought: _I am in love._

My second thought: _Oh, fuck_.

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**Next chapter will be uploaded by Friday, 25th May.**


	2. Mendax

**Well, that went wrong. Ugh. Need to work on deadline-meeting skills. **

**Also, this chapter uses British English. I'll change it if enough people dislike it or find it a little odd to read, because you are my readers and if you weren't here then where would I be?**

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_Nico_

That day was weird.

It started with a visit to the Athena cabin – Annabeth had showed me a website the day before, and I wanted to see it again. It was an interesting one – full of lots of stories, some good, most bad. Annabeth, after giving me the full lecture on how the laptop was one-of-a-kind and if I damaged it in any way she would get me _vaporised,_ let me log on using her account. I chose a section at random, then clicked a story that seemed okay.

It wasn't.

In all honesty? A surprisingly good wake-up, but not the one I wanted.

I stopped reading when things started getting a little steamy – hey, sexy novels were Bianca's thing, even though she tried to hide it – and left Annabeth to use her laptop. When I left, she was reading something with almost scary concentration. I had a weird feeling it was the same story I was reading.

Breakfast was a ton of French stuff – Aphrodite cabin on duty today. I remembered I was on breakfast duty the next day, helping the Athena cabin. I generally helped clean up afterwards. The harpies liked me, or at least feared me.

Anyway.

I grabbed a small bowl of milk, a slice of toast and a big _pain au chocolat_, then joined the sacrifice line. When it came to my turn, I poured on some milk, threw in most of the toast, muttered a quick prayer to my father and went to my table. (I _love_ chocolate, no way am I sacrificing anything with chocolate in.) Chiron had decided to take chunks off the big empty tables and use them to make tables for other small cabins, so tables like Zeus and Hera – and Hades – were now _way_ smaller. The gods had been reluctant, but let us do it in the end. The Artemis table was the only big empty one left.

The milk was good stuff – full milk, probably only just come out the cow. The Aphrodite kids tried not to have it if they could; they never liked eating fatty things. I had nobody else on my table to chat with, so I finished a lot earlier than most of the other kids, and I set off for Greek Speak.

Chiron had confronted everyone working on the Argo II, and everybody who had been at the camp for less than a certain amount of time had to have normal camp lessons every morning. Guess what? I qualified. I got lumped in with the rest of the small cabins, so the people I knew consisted of one, and that was Clovis.

Greek Speak was a disaster. The normal guy who ran it, someone from the Hermes cabin, had flu, and the replacements were Connor and Travis Stoll. About five minutes in we were having a massive pillow fight besides the lake. And the pegasi were involved. Some time after that, the harpies found us, and we were marched back to our cabins until we had to go to our next class – Swordfighting. Woo.

That was even worse, at least on my part. We got a really whiny guy teaching us, someone from Ares who was obsessed with technique. He spent about ten minutes correcting the way I _held my sword_ – then he challenged me to have a go at him. I got first move.

I stabbed him through the leg straight away. Seriously, the blood went _everywhere_. He screamed like hell. We all tried to look solemn as some girls from Apollo carried him off, but I was pretty sure all of us were trying not to laugh.

Then it was lunch, which I was not allowed to go to for stabbing the Ares guy through the leg. Totally unfair – I mean, he was gonna kill me with _boredom_. Wasn't I allowed to defend myself?

The twenty-first century is so _weird_.

So, after lunch (during which I had to sit in my cabin), I went off to Bunker 9. Computers. Something I actually enjoyed about the 2000s. Some Hephaestus kids were already there, tinkering away.

"Hi, guys," I said, looking up at the ship. She was already a beauty – smooth metal, gold-coloured trim, and the dragon figurehead at the front. It would probably look a lot less graceful when the weapons were attached, but oh well.

Jake waved to me. "The computer work's ahead of schedule, well done, so now could you give us a hand on the physical side?"

I nodded, and went over to the first empty spot I could see – right next to Nyssa.

Well. Nyssa. Fun memories there.

It happened in the week after I returned from my Percy-searching. She'd found me kinda cute, for some reason, and I thought she was a nice girl, kind and all that, and things sorta snowballed and – well, that's how I found out I was gay.

According to her, it's not the first time.

She's had quite a few boyfriends who turned out to be gay. It must really hurt, going out with someone who can't love you, but she either doesn't care or doesn't show it. She and her mum have turned it into a sort of joke.

I asked her how many people she's worked her magic on. She immediately drew out a piece of paper, pretended it was a list and came up with the total 'forty thousand, seven hundred and twenty-eight'.

And all of this is one of the few things I've never spoken to Leo about, because seriously. You _don't _want to know about what your friend did with your sister. Also, the gay thing. This isn't San Francisco.

Anyway. Side story over. Nyssa and I had a quick conversation, she told me what to do. I fetched a drill and started drilling holes in metal panels based on where someone had marked them on in Sharpie.

It was quite fun, actually. Repetitive but fun.

Four sets of panels later, I realised somebody was looking at me.

I looked up. Leo was standing there, staring right at me. His mouth was hanging open slightly. Something about him looked dazed.

"Leo? Leo, buddy, wake up, we've got a ship to build." I leaned over and snapped my fingers in his face. He jerked awake, lifted the spanner in his hand up.

"Sorry, dude, I kinda dozed off there," he said. He laughed – shakily. "Must be the heat."

Something about that seemed off, but I shrugged it off and went back to work. Once the panels were done, there was waterproofing to do, and getting some more fireproof chemicals in case the blowtorches got out of control, and a hundred and one other things. And all the time, I'd look at Leo and catch him looking at me.

We ended work early today, everyone leaving to go to the campfire. It was roaring tonight; ten-feet-tall, bright white fire, everyone singing, and smiles all around.

"_There was an old dragon who swallowed a horse, I know why he swallowed a horse - he was hungry, of course..."_

The marshmallows were being passed around now. I speared one on a stick and passed the bowl along. The row in front were already toasting theirs.

"_There was an old dragon who swallowed a house, I'm so so sad that he swallowed the house, no home for the mouse..."_

This song was one of my favourites. It made so little sense.

The singing faded away – the last verse had been forbidden by Chiron, because 'swearing is not appropriate at this camp', despite the fact practically everyone does it.

Of course, there's always the Stolls. Nothing deters them.

"_There was an old dragon who swallowed a city, and after the dragon had swallowed the _city- well, _h_e_ felt a bit sh-"_

They saw Chiron just in time to avoid being on kitchen duty for the rest of their lives.

"_Shocked," _ they sang instead.

Everybody chuckled a bit, even Chiron. "Close one there," he said sternly, still smiling.

"Oh, very close," added Mr D. "You could have been in deep sh-" Chiron gave him a Look.

"Yes?" chorused the twins, looking at Mr D mischievously.

Chiron sighed. "Alright. You win. Now go take your row to toast marshmallows." He went to fetch the sticks from the row in front, muttering about 'insolent children' and 'there are five-year-olds at this camp'.

Off I went with the rest of the row, spearing two marshmallows on a stick and holding them near the flames. It was a nice clear night, and the Huntress gleamed brightly above, shining down on us. I don't remember much about Zoë, but I know she knew she was going to die on that quest and went anyway. She must have really been-

"Nico? Nico. Dude, your marshmallows are burning."

I tore my gaze away to look at the stick, and Clovis was right – they were bubbling and turning dark grey, a little flame dancing around them. "Crap." I blew them out, but the damage had been done.

Jason, sitting on the other side of me, smiled. "Don't worry, they're nice burnt. They caramelise, they're really sweet."

I raised an eyebrow, but ate them anyway, and you know what? He was right. I sat there, eating the gooey marshmallows, and looked at the fire. It was _really_ hot tonight; I'd taken off my jacket, and even with the cold breeze coming from the Sound I was starting to feel a little dozy.

_Sorry, dude, I kinda dozed off there. Must be the heat._

Something about that seemed off...

Annabeth had taught me a way to deal with questions - work out what the question is, then what you know that relates to it, then try to connect them. I'd never used it, but what the hell, there's a first time for everything.

Question: what was wrong with what Leo said?

What did I know about Leo? Leo. Hephaestus. Machines. Hispanic. Trickster. Demigod.

_Fire_.

If he could deal with standing in a fire, then why would heat affect him like that?

Leo was lying. But why?


End file.
